Monday, April 24, 2006

Adventures in Large Format Photography

I finally got around to taking my first two 4x5 photos to Foto1 for developing. Fortunately, I learned that Ivory Photo right near the Madison House still has a functioning darkroom, so it will remain a walkable hobby.

Here is one of my two attempts. It's not too shabby, but has four fairly significant problems. The first is clearly the framing. With my lens I would have had to get out into the middle of William St. to get it all, so I went for a practice shot. The second is that the top of the building is not in focus. I tilted the lens too much in trying to get both the brick wall and the cornice in focus, so the plane of focus is very oblique (it looks like from the garbage can through the brick wall to top of the doorway arch). The third is that it is not level -- the cornice should be parallel to the top of the frame. The fourth is that I was not dead-center. The top of the gate arch should be in line with the top of the doorway arch. Live and learn.

This one, actually my first, is even worse. First off, I double exposed it. It's even less level than the other one, and off center, of course, too. Anyway, it was my first attempt and now I'm going after some more attempts.

Bottom line, view photography is difficult, which is why so many archival images and proto snapshots I've come across in research are partially out of focus or show some vignetting. However, its results are awesome, as the lower 2/3 of the top image indicates. More to come.